Daire Lynch's incredible journey from Clonmel Rowing Club to the Olympic Games

In the smallest towns lie the greatest dreams.

For Daire Lynch from Clonmel, it has been an incredible journey to go from messing about in boats at Clonmel Rowing Club to launching his boat with his rowing partner, Phillip Doyle, at the Vaires-sur-Marne nautical rowing venue, 30 kilometres west of Paris at the Olympic Games this Saturday.

In his early years, Daire tried his hand at athletics, swimming and tennis, without ever developing a passion for these sports.
So when a few of his friends asked him to go down to the rowing club, he was ready for a new challenge. Rowing has its fair share of participants who were indifferent in their previous sporting exploits, but the discipline and commitment required for rowing appeals to them. Rowing has been described as a beautiful kind of pain.

Daire developed his skill sets in the sport of rowing. And as he started to get a few wins under his belt, his ambition grew to get to the next level.

With meticulous attention to detail, he contacted top endurance athletes from around the world to find out what training programmes they were following.

At this stage, Daire was doing 24 kilometres on the rowing machine before going to school in the morning and another massive stint of 24 or 25 kilometres in the evening on the rowing machine, clocking up 350 kilometres a week.

This training load is mind-boggling to us lesser mortals, but something that Daire embraced head-on. He reaped the rewards when he won the Irish Junior 18 1x, the Club 1x and the Intermediate 1x at the Irish rowing championships in 2016.

This led to selection in the 2x at the 2016 World Junior championships, where he finished eighth, rowing with Ronan Byrne.
Awarded a scholarship to Yale, Daire spent four years in America under the guidance of legendary rowing coach Steve Gladstone. He was back in a 2x for Ireland for the European Under 23 championships in 2020.

Rowing with Ronan Byrne, this duo showed that they have a big engine when they came through the field to win the gold medal.

They followed this up with a bronze medal at the European Senior Championships. For 2023, Daire teamed up with Philip Doyle from Belfast. From the beginning, the pair gelled in the boat and their season culminated in a fantastic bronze medal in the Senior World Championships and qualification of the heavyweight 2x for the Paris Olympics.

Above: Daire Lynch’s parents, Joanna and Niall, and brother Brian pictured before their departure for Paris to support Daire and Philip Doyle at the Olympic Games

Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy are going in the lightweight 2x, bidding to retain the title which they won in Tokyo in 2021.

Representing your country in your chosen sport at the Olympics has to be the ultimate accolade on a person’s cv.

Daire Lynch and Philip Doyle have realistic medal ambitions in Paris, having won a bronze medal in the season’s first World Cup Regatta in Varese in Italy and winning the gold medal in the third World Cup Regatta.

The Dutch are the justifiable favourites but the Irish boat is definitely in the mix with the Italians, the Germans, the Romanians and Australians.

Training has been described as like putting money in the bank. The more you train the bigger your account.

As Daire and Philip head down to the starting pontoon this Saturday for the first round heat at 10.30, all those arduous training sessions carried out over the last 10 years will be called upon to deliver big dividends.